


I Will Stay

by sunshinexbomb



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal, Non-Linear Narrative, marriage pact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 11:39:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12840378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinexbomb/pseuds/sunshinexbomb
Summary: “And how long would we have to wait? Until we stop looking and get married to each other instead?” Nicky asks with a laugh.“How about until you turn thirty? Gives us lots of time to find someone. And if we don’t - we have each other.”“Okay,” Nicky says, a little breathless. “If we’re both still single at thirty, I will marry you, Alex. It’s a deal.”--In which Nicky and Alex make a marriage pact because there's no one else Alex would rather have by his side.





	I Will Stay

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to use Nicky's birthday as an excuse to write something and my go-to prompt generator gave me "Best friends who promised they would marry each other if still single by 30" WHICH IF THAT'S NOT A SIGN IDK WHAT IS. This isn't entirely what I planned it to be, but *Louis Tomlinson voice* it is what is is.
> 
> Thank you Coco for the beta! All other mistakes are my own.

**Moscow (2012)**

“We should get married.”

Nicky stops suddenly from where he’s sucking a bruise into Alex’s neck. His mouth is red from where Alex was biting it earlier, his hair mussed from Alex’s fingers. He looks confused mostly, a little dazed. Only part of that is probably from Alex’s statement.

“We should _what_?” 

Alex shrugs, gently pushing at Nicky’s shoulder. Nicky gets the message, rolling off Alex’s lap and lying on his side instead. There’s a strand of his long hair falling into his eyes and Alex tucks it behind his ear with a tenderness that surprises even him.

“Not now. Just something I’ve been thinking about,” Alex explains. 

“We’re not even dating,” Nicky points out, which is true. They’re - fucking. And they’re playing hockey. In Moscow. Where Alex asked Nicky to come because these days, playing hockey without him makes Alex’s skin itch in a way he doesn’t like to think about.

“I know,” Alex says. He sits up, the sheets pooling in his lap. “I just think, maybe, one day if we’re still single, we could do it. Being married to you wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Thanks,” Nicky says drily, “not so bad. What a compliment.” But his eyes are bright, the corner of his mouth twitching like it does when he’s trying not to smile. Alex laughs.

“You know what I mean. This - it works, right? It could be good - me and you, we’re good together.”

Reading Nicky on the ice is like reading a story in Russian - easy, natural, something he doesn’t have to think about. Reading Nicky off of it is like reading in English - a bit harder to decipher at times but something Alex prides himself in improving at over the years. Right now, the hand Nicky has on Alex’s chest, the quirk of his smile, the lightness in his shoulders - Alex can tell Nicky’s not taking his request all that seriously.

There are few things Alex has been more serious about in his life.

“And how long would we have to wait? Until we stop looking and get married to each other instead?” Nicky asks with a laugh.

“How about until you turn thirty? Gives us lots of time to find someone. And if we don’t - we have each other.”

Nicky kisses Alex in response, his hand moving up to cup Alex’s face and his leg hooking over Alex’s hip. Alex grips tightly around Nicky’s waist, pulls him closer and sighs into Nicky’s mouth.

“Okay,” Nicky says, a little breathless. “If we’re both still single at thirty, I will marry you, Alex. It’s a deal.”

Alex kisses him again, smiling wide. This is a promise he definitely intends on keeping.

**Washington DC (2015)**

Alex has a list of things he wants to accomplish before he’s thirty.

He wants a cup. A gold medal. A stable relationship.

He wants to get over Nicky.

He gets none of those things.

“Let’s go out to dinner,” Nicky tells him before his birthday.

“Are you sure your hip can handle that?” Alex asks, mostly as a joke.

He can imagine Nicky rolling his eyes over the phone. He wonders where Nicky is, if he’s curled up on the couch with his legs tucked underneath him or at the island counter doing his morning crossword. 

“You saw me at the rink the last couple of weeks,” Nicky says with a laugh. “If I can handle the ice, I think I can handle dinner.”

“Dinner sounds nice,” Alex says, digging his fingers into Gera’s soft fur. Even with the dogs, his house feels too big these days. Lonely. 

Alex misses housing his parents and Misha staying with him while he worked in DC.

He misses Nastya who had become such a steady constant in his life the last year.

“Good,” Nicky says. “Make sure you dress nice.”

“Don’t I always?” Alex asks.

“I’m sorry, of course you do,” Nicky says flatly. 

“Nicklas Backstrom, such a charmer.” 

“I’m just trying to properly wine and dine you,” Nicky says, trying to keep his voice level, but Alex can still pick up on the teasing, the flirty edge he hasn’t heard in a while.

It makes Alex’s stomach flutter.

“I’m not that easy, Backy,” Alex tells him with a laugh. “You’ll need a bit more than dinner to get me into bed,” he jokes. 

Nicky hums lightly. “We’ll see.”

Alex’s stomach flips again.

Alex had always assumed he’d have his life a bit more together by this time. He didn’t think it’d be a series of failed playoff runs and failed relationships and failed attempts to get over Nicky when it seems like even after all this time, Nicky doesn’t want anything more than something casual.

The flirting and fucking around was fun once. And maybe it still is at times, but it’s also messier as the years go on.

Alex didn’t expect to be thirty and still hopelessly in love with his best friend.

He still thinks about it sometimes, the promise he made to Nicky. He hopes that Nicky thinks about it too.

Alex still has a couple more years to wait, though, and maybe by that time, he’ll have things figured out so he never has to bring it up.

Sometimes, Alex isn’t sure what’s worse - Nicky being with him as a last resort or Nicky not being with him at all.

**Moscow (2014)**

Maria breaks up with Alex in July. 

They hadn’t even gotten a chance to set a date for the wedding, and all Alex can wonder is why she even agreed to his proposal if she had a feeling that things weren’t going to work out.

By the end of the summer, Alex loses another chance for the Cup, an Olympic medal, and his fiancee. Even with his success in Belarus, the heaviness in Alex’s chest and the wariness in his bones don’t seem to ease.

It’s been a hell of a long year, and it’s nowhere close to being over.

Nicky reaches out to him at the end of August, just before they’re due to be back for training camp. Even in the grainy Facetime video he looks good, healthy and well-rested and sunkissed from his summer workouts. 

Alex doesn’t have the words to describe how much he misses him, misses Washington and the team and anywhere that’s not his apartment in Moscow with all its gaping holes left behind by Maria’s absence.

Nicky doesn’t ask him how he is, and Alex is grateful. Instead he asks, “When will you be back?”

“Soon,” Alex promises. “I’m ready for the season to start.”

“Me too,” Nicky says with a sigh, and amidst his own worries, it’s been easy for Alex to forget that he’s not the only one who’s had a rough year.

“Do you think this will be our year?” Alex asks. He hasn’t asked it in a long time.

Nicky bites anxiously on his bottom lip, leaving behind tiny indents from the pressure of his teeth. “I don’t know,” he admits.

Alex is tired of the uncertainty. 

“I think we can make it our year,” Alex says with a lot more conviction than he actually feels. “I promise we will.”

“I hope it is.” Nicky smiles, soft and small, but it’s something.

Alex doesn’t know what the year will bring them, if he can keep true to his word or if the season will fall short once again. There is one constant that Alex knows he can rely on, though, and that’s the fact that Nicky will be there with him through it all.

**Toronto (2016)**

They lose to Canada. Again.

Alex wants to laugh at how ridiculous it all seems, how even for this made-up tournament he can’t lead his team to a win.

An elimination game and he walks away with no goals, no assists, and no medal.

Sometimes, Alex feels like a fucking joke.

He gives himself the night to wallow. 

Alex finds himself alone in his hotel room. Zhenya is with his family, his wife and his son and his satisfaction that even without this win he still has a Stanley Cup ring ceremony to look forward to. Alex isn’t sure where Kuzma is, but that’s probably because Alex is ignoring his calls.

A part of Alex thinks that some company would be nice, but mostly he just wants to be on his own.

Alex is flipping through channels on the TV when there’s a knock at his door. He ignores it, thinking it might be Kuzma, but the knocking gets louder until it’s Nicky’s voice angrily asking him to open the fucking door.

“What?” Alex asks. 

Nicky’s obviously ready for bed, dressed in a pair of old Caps sweatpants and a threadbare Brynas shirt that stretches tight across his shoulders. His hair is wet, curling gently at the ends and a couple droplets of water still slipping down the collar of his shirt. 

“Did you eat anything?” Nicky asks, walking into Alex’s room and closing the door behind him.

“No,” Alex says, following Nicky inside. Nicky makes himself comfortable on Alex’s bed without permission. Alex doesn’t ask him to move, instead settling in next to him.

“Good, I ordered you room service.”

Alex isn’t sure Nicky would leave even if he asked him to, so Alex doesn’t say anything. Nicky’s quiet for the most part, alternating his attention between his phone and the re-run of “House Hunters” that Alex had settled on. He doesn’t say anything about the game or Alex’s play or when he’s going back to DC. He doesn’t say much of anything and Alex is glad. 

Beside Alex, Nicky is warm and solid, the heat from his skin pressing comfortably against his own. It’s soothing and familiar. Alex drops his head on Nicky’s shoulder, and Nicky shifts a little to make them both more comfortable.

“You didn’t have to come check on me,” Alex says, breaking their silence.

“I wanted to,” Nicky says simply. “Would you have let anyone else do it?”

“No.”

Alex has lost track of how many times Nicky has come to his aid - defending him on the ice, biting out sarcastic comments to reporters, sitting by his side on the plane or the bus or in his own house when Alex was lost in his head. Every single time Alex feels his gratitude hot and heavy where it sits in his chest.

“Thank you,” Alex adds softly and Nicky smiles at him softly.

“I’m always here for you.”

There’s no reason for Alex to doubt that Nicky’s telling anything but the truth.

**Washington DC (2016)**

Alex buys a ring sometime after Nicky’s twenty-ninth birthday. 

It’s simple, a plain band, thick and silver. He keeps it hidden away in the back of a drawer in his bedroom.

It was never a joke for him, the pact. Alex always tries to keep true to his word when he can.

Next year, he will ask Nicky to marry him. Maybe he’ll agree, maybe he won’t. Things change in five years - Alex has changed and Nicky has too.

But one thing has stayed constant, and that’s the fact that there’s no one Alex has met that he would rather spend his life with than Nicky. Nicky’s the only one who has been by his side through the most important time in Alex’s life, and Alex wants to make sure Nicky is there through the rest of it as well.

**Washington DC (2017)**

Being reunited on a line with Nicky feels like coming home.

Alex feels an extra burst of energy every time he hits the ice. Playing with Kuzma is always good, but playing with Nicky is familiar and it feels right. This is how things should be, especially with how many other changes they’ve had to deal with this season.

The win against Ottawa feels electric, especially after the humiliating loss against Calgary just a few days before, and Alex doesn’t hesitate when Nicky asks him to come over to his place after the game.

They’re barely through the door before Nicky is pressing Alex against the wall, kissing him hard and rough. Nicky’s fingers are cold from the November air outside and Alex shivers when they brush against his skin as Nicky fiddles to undo his tie and the buttons of his collar.

“I want you,” Nicky mumbles, his voice low and a little harsh and Alex laughs, stilling Nicky’s hands by grabbing them in his own.

Alex kisses him back slowly, almost lazily, instead of matching Nicky’s fervor.

“I want you too,” he says, and Nicky groans, disgruntled at Alex slowing down the pace. 

“Then why aren’t we -?”

Alex cuts him off, saying with a laugh, “Tomorrow is your birthday.”

“I know,” Nicky says, eyebrows furrowing. “So? It comes every year, Alex, it’s not that special.”

“This one is special. You’re turning thirty.”

Nicky rolls his eyes as Alex leads him into the living room, but complying easily as Alex pulls him onto the couch. “Again, I know. If Andre sends me another text that says, ‘thirty, flirty, and thriving’, I’m going to break his other thumb.”

“Nicky,” Alex says, trying to keep his tone even and serious, and it must work because Nicky stops, looking at him curiously. “Do you remember, when we were in Moscow, and I asked you to marry me?” 

Nicky’s curiosity shifts to confusion, the grip he has on Alex’s hand loosening a little bit. “No, I -” he stops, before laughing. “Wait, yes. You said if we were both single by the time I was thirty, we should get married.”

Alex nods, squeezing Nicky’s hand. “Nicky, I want you to marry me. Not because we haven’t found anyone else but because - because the person I’ve been looking for has always been you.”

Nicky’s jaw drops open a little. “What?”

Alex’s stomach twists with nerves, his heart beating hummingbird-fast in his chest. 

“We keep coming back to each other, Nicky. For ten years we’ve been playing together, and for more than half that time we’ve been doing whatever it is that we’re doing now - fucking, dating, whatever it is. Nicky, I know already I’m not going to find anyone else. I want it to be you. And I just need to know if you want it to be me too. And if you don’t, then that’s okay. We’ll forget about this, but - I just. Need you to know.”

Nicky’s quiet for a long while, his hand still limp in Alex’s hand. When he finally speaks, he asks, “Do I have to decide now?”

“No,” Alex says with a small chuckle. “I’ve been waiting for five years, Nicky, I can wait a little bit longer.”

To Alex’s surprise, Nicky kisses him. It’s much softer than before, even a little hesitant, but Alex puts a hand on Nicky’s waist and it seems to steady him a little. 

“I think, I’ve always hoped it would be you in the end,” Nicky admits. “I’ve loved you for a long time, Alex, and I think I could marry you, but - we need to give it time.”

“We can take all the time you need,” Alex says, and when Nicky squeezes his hand, it feels like he’s making the same kind of promise that Alex made all those years ago.

It’s a promise that Nicky isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

**Washington DC (2010)**

Their exit from the playoffs is quick and brutal and the season comes crashing down around them.

Alex thought that they were going to do it, he thought that they would bring home the Cup, but it’s just another year that doesn’t belong to them.

The air in the locker room is thick and heavy with grief after the press clears out. Nobody from the team hangs around very long, only staying around to hear Boudreau’s last few comments and a short few words about the season that Alex just barely chokes out. 

Even when he’s out of his jersey, the newly stitched “C” sits heavy on Alex’s chest.

Alex is the last one out, sitting alone in the empty locker room. Or so he thinks before Nicky drops down on the bench beside him.

Neither of them say a word, but Nicky presses their legs together, knobbly knees knocking awkwardly. There’s a bruise forming on Nicky’s thigh from a blocked shot, a similar one turning yellow across Alex’s forearm. Sacrifices for a battle that they ended up losing.

“Do you think next year will be our year?” Alex asks, voice scratchy.

“I think so,” Nicky says and Alex nods.

Alex knows that even if it’s not, at least Nicky will be there to share the burden. Nicky who always seems to know what Alex needs without being told. Alex doesn’t know how he does it, how Nicky seems to understand him better than Alex understands himself.

Of all the people to always have by his side, Alex is so, so glad he has Nicky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated! If you want to talk about Nicky or Ovi or anything, I am tjoshov on both twitter and tumblr :)


End file.
